Indian stock markets opened in red on Wednesday morning, with the trend continuing for both the Sensex and Nifty 50. This fall is believed to come after concerns raised over the cyclical slowdown. In earnings along with negative global cues that took a beating on investor sentiments.
The Nifty50 opened today at 23,822.45, while the BSE Sensex opened at 78,495.53. This is the fourth consecutive day of decline as markets have been pulled down by weak earnings and continuous foreign fund outflows.
Gainers At the National Stock Exchange in the early hours of trade NTPC, Bharti Airtel, HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, and Asian Paints rose the most. Mahindra and Mahindra tanked 2.42 percent and other losers included Maruti, BPSL, Apollo Hospitals, and Nestle India.
By sector, equity benchmarks of stocks in the Bank, Financial Services, IT, and Private Bank sectors turned green. While the remainder remained in the red.
Domestically, India’s retail inflation surged to a 14-month high of 6.21% in October. This hit investor morale hard. Against an estimated 5.49% in September and above the RBI target range. Accordingly, expectations of a rate cut by the RBI in its forthcoming monetary policy review- scheduled on December 4-6-have started to decline. On the positive side, India’s Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for September showed a rise of 3.1 percent. From the contraction of 0.1 percent recorded the previous month.
“Investors are now closely following US inflation data. Since it will give indications about the next course of action the Federal Reserve will take regarding interest rates. This is helping to add volatility in the market at the global level,” said Varun Aggarwal, MD of Profit Idea.
Commenting on the performance of the Nifty50, Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research at Axis Securities said, “Market participants will keenly watch the critical support zone between 23,700-23,779 now. Failure to hold this level may induce the market to test a 200-day average that lies about 1.5% below Tuesday’s close. This would be the first time in 19 months that the market tests this average.
Global markets also showed weakness. Wall Street’s momentum started fading after the US presidential election results. Not only the S&P 500 but the Dow Jones, too, ended in the red on Tuesday. Similarly, Asian markets mirrored that on Wednesday, reflecting losses posted by Wall Street the previous day.
Going ahead, market participants will await the Q2 earnings of Apollo Tyres, Rashtriya Chemicals, PI Industries, and AstraZeneca Pharma, among others. Other companies like Western Carriers India, Brigade Enterprises, Deepak Nitrite, and Bayer CropScience will announce their quarterly earnings shortly.
ANI